What inspired you to choose international standardisation as your PhD topic?

I came across the topic of standardisation a bit randomly while reading about the technological race between great powers over new disruptive technologies such as 5G and Artificial Intelligence (AI). In this vast literature, I ended up discovering a growing niche in the literature, which considers standardisation as a “battleground” between countries and industries. Even though this definition is debatable, as standardisation is ideally a collaborative and consensus-based process, there is in fact a competitive side to standardisation, which revolves around the selection of technological solutions that compose the standard among numerous alternatives. Within this context, the country whose industry gets the most technological solutions approved as essential for the standard is likely to receive the greatest economic and political benefits. For this reason, I started to wonder which factors might affect the influence of countries and their respective industries in the setting of telecommunication standards in view of new aspiring standard-setters and shifting power structures in international standardisation.

Although standards are highly technical, your research emphasises the politics of standardisation. Why is this important?

In theory, standardisation is a contribution-driven and voluntary process that takes place between engineers and corporate representatives over various study groups dealing with technical specifications or a specific technological segment. In addition, this process is based on consensus which means that participants in the standardisation process must all agree on a technical specification with no one dissenting. Given these characteristics, standards are generally perceived as something very technical and apolitical. This definition holds true when describing the technical process on its own terms, but it lacks explanatory power when observing the distributional outcomes of standards. As a matter of fact, standards are not neutral: their choice reflects the interests and strategies of the most influential participants in the standard-setting process, which in turn establishes the way in which private and public actors shape innovation, create markets, provide security, and establish norms.

How do you engage with existing literature on standards, and what is unique about your project?

Without doubt international standards constitute a fundamental pillar of global economic governance as they set the perimeter within which actors operate in the market and beyond. The development of international standards involves many different players across various levels and organisations, which make authority and power extremely diffuse. To analyse this complexity, I draw on various theoretical insights that touch upon the distributional consequences of standards, the hybrid complexity of standard development organisations (SDO), the role of private actors and domestic agencies as proxy for countries’ influence in the standard setting, and various economic and political arguments that might explain the different patterns of influence of countries in international standardisation. My main contribution lies in the testing of different theories by leveraging quantitative and qualitative data.

What methodological approach do you use to explain changing patterns of influence on the development of telecommunication standards?

Influence is never easy to define. In a collaborative and consensus-based process, such as standardization, defining influence may be even more difficult. In my research, influence is defined as the ability to turn a personal interest, in the form of a patented technology or a standard contribution, into a collective interest, namely as part of a standard. I identify different levels of influence across the setting of the three most recent generations of telecommunication standards (3G/4G/5G) through a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) method, which assigns membership scores based on empirical observations and case studies. In this study, I focus specifically on countries that are considered as leading standard-setters.

The implementation of 5G technology globally has been contentious. What bearing could your research have on future policy directions?

Trade conflicts and diplomatic frictions have been central issues in the rollout of 5G technologies. The main reason for these disputes has been mostly ascribed to the risk of enabling key strategic infrastructures or networks with foreign technologies, which might provide a backdoor for malicious actors. Although this risk might be overstated, playing an influential role in shaping standards could prevent countries from getting exposed to the risk of implementing technologies which might not be proven secure. For this and other reasons, it might be advisable that European Union (EU) member states, which aim to keep and consolidate their standard setter status, put more efforts into providing financial assistance to innovative companies, coordinating technical work across various stakeholders, and improving regulations.

You joined the Global Governance Centre as a Visiting Fellow in 2021. How has this research experience been so far?

As soon as I started to delve into the world of standards, I immediately thought that the Global Governance Center could be the ideal location for my research abroad experience for its great expertise and its closeness to many international standard organizations. At the time of writing, my experience is already exceeding my expectations for several reasons. I have had the chance to receive great insights from several scholars, work in a great academic environment, and make new friends, which are all important aspects throughout a PhD journey.

What are your plans over the next few years?

In the coming months I will continue to do interviews with different stakeholders in order to integrate a technical perspective into my research, a part of which I would like to publish soon. In the longer term, I plan to investigate the role of countries across different standard development organizations as well as the role of standards in shaping specific market segments and security fields. In doing so, as some great scholars already do, I would like to raise further awareness on the role of standards at both an academic and public policy level. In particular, the way in which standards not only shape innovation and market, but also security and sustainability norms.

Claudio Christopher Passalacqua is a PhD student at the School of International Studies, University of Trento (Italy). His research investigates the political and economic determinants that affect the industrial influence of countries in the competition over the development of telecommunications standards. Before embarking on his PhD programme, he has been a Schuman trainee at European Parliament, and an intern at the International Trade Center and the Italian Trade Agency, where he focused on international trade policies and political economy studies.

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